Recycling Industry Flounders in California

Assuming benevolent motives, if it were not for unintended consequences, liberal policies would have no consequences at all. One consequence of minimum wage moonbattery is that it has helped kill the recycling industry even in eco-mad California:

California’s largest operator of recycling redemption centers shut down Monday and laid off 750 employees.

RePlanet closed all 284 of its centers… The move came three years after RePlanet closed 191 of its recycling centers and laid off 278 workers.

This will make it hard for people in the Bay Area to redeem recyclables.

RePlanet isn’t alone:

Consumer Watchdog, a nonprofit that studies issues in California’s recycling industry, estimated that more than 40% of all redemption centers have closed in the last five years.

Among the reasons recycling businesses cannot stay afloat despite being subsidized by Big Government is minimum wage moonbattery imposed by Big Government:

“With the continued reduction in state fees, the depressed pricing of recycled aluminum and PET plastic, and the rise in operating costs resulting from minimum wage increases and required health and workers compensation insurance, the Company has concluded that operation of these recycling centers and supporting operations is no longer sustainable,” a company spokesman said in a statement Monday.

No doubt the progressives running California will respond with still larger subsidies, along with draconian penalties for not recycling.

Hat tips: Frontpage Mag, Maggie’s Farm.

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